The ride back from the pack clinic was dead silent, the air inside the SUV thick with Raquelle’s suffocating, pitch-black Alpha aura.
Dominic and Jake didn’t dare speak.
By the time they pulled up to the massive pack house, a mental alert cracked through the mind-link from the tracker squads: *Alpha, we got him.
We managed to submerge him, and he is in the dungeon as we speak.* Raquelle didn’t say a word.
She marched straight past the main foyer and headed toward the heavy iron doors that led down to the pack dungeon, which was built like a fortified fortress directly underneath the pack house.
Dominic and Jake flanked her instantly, their jaws tight as they descended the cold, concrete stairs.
But as they moved forward into the main corridor, a strange wave of scent hit Raquelle’s senses.
It was a bizarre, conflicting clash that made her heart skip a beat.
Dominic suddenly choked back a cough, waving a hand in front of his nose.
“Oh, fuck…
disgusting,” he muttered, his face contorting in pure revulsion.
To him and Jake, it was nothing but the foul, putrid stench of a filthy rogue.
But Raquelle’s brows furrowed in deep confusion.
Beneath that unpleasant, dirty layer, there was something else.
Something breathtakingly sweet.
A rich, magnetic fragrance that absolutely did not belong in a place of torture.
It was confusing, intoxicating, and completely scrambled her mind.
Before she could process the contradiction, a palace warrior stationed at the dungeon cells sensed their heavy auras.
He rushed toward them immediately, bowing his head in deep respect.
“Alpha!
Beta!
Gamma!” the warrior greeted breathlessly.
“We have the rogue secured in the deep cells.
Please follow me.” The warrior directed them down the narrow, dimly lit corridor.
With every single step Raquelle took, that sweet, addictive scent grew exponentially stronger, completely drowning out the foul odor until her head was spinning.
They stopped dead in front of the heavy iron bars of the final cell.
Raquelle stepped forward to look inside—and her jaw instantly dropped.
Shackled to the stone wall was the captive rogue.
At the sound of her approaching steps, he slowly lifted his head.
His dark, piercing eyes locked dead onto hers.
Raquelle’s breath hitched completely, a sharp, audible gasp tearing from her throat.
*MATE!* Roxy screamed in her head, the midnight black wolf clawing violently at the surface of her mind.
A desperate instinct slammed into Raquelle, a primal urge demanding she tear the cell door open and pull him into her arms.
But the heartbreaking image of the nineteen-year-old girl weeping in the clinic bed flashed violently across her vision.
The bruises.
The raw wrists.
The shame.
Raquelle ripped her eyes away immediately, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
“So, who’s gonna kill him?” she asked slowly, her voice forced into a flat, eerie calm.
Dominic and Jake exchanged a swift, stunned look.
Even the dungeon guards stared at her in absolute shock.
It was entirely unlike their Alpha to hesitate, let alone calmly ask who wanted the kill instead of ripping the rogue’s throat out herself on the spot.
“Let me…” one of the guards volunteered, stepping forward.
“Alright,” Raquelle said, her expression an unreadable block of ice.
The rogue looked up, genuine shock piercing through his swollen features.
The guard took a step toward the cell keys, but Raquelle raised a sharp hand, halting him.
“Which pack were you from?” she asked, watching the prisoner closely.
If he was handsome or ugly under normal circumstances, she couldn’t possibly tell now; his face was brutally beaten, bloody, and completely unrecognizable.
“E-Evergreen pack…” he stuttered, his voice weak and trembling.
“Why did you leave?” The rogue clamped his jaw shut, refusing to answer at first.
But under the suffocating weight of her dark Alpha pressure, he let out a ragged sigh and answered reluctantly.
“I killed someone,” he whispered.
“And now you raped someone in my pack!” Raquelle’s voice suddenly exploded into a ferocious roar.
Forgetting entirely that the man before her was her fated mate, she slammed her hands violently against the iron bars of the cell, glaring down at him with pure venom.
The rogue flinched away, trembling.
He had clearly recognized her as his fated mate the exact second their eyes met, and he was absolutely terrified of her.
“You would have to die,” she said, locking her eyes onto his.
He remained completely silent, his gaze actively begging her for mercy, but Raquelle didn’t care.
No rapist deserved to live.
“Kill him,” she ordered the guard who had volunteered.
The guard unlocked the heavy gate, pulling a silver-plated tactical dagger from his belt as he stepped inside.
“Remove his eyeballs,” Raquelle added, her voice entirely devoid of human emotion.
Behind her, Jake and Dominic smiled evilly, a collective sigh of relief washing over them as they finally recognized the terrifying, unyielding person that was their Alpha.
The guard walked up to the chained rogue.
For the next few minutes, the narrow dungeon hallway was filled with a barrage of agonizing screams, guttural groans, and desperate crying.
When the guard stepped back, two bloody eyeballs lay wetly on the cold stone floor.
Raquelle knew she shouldn’t watch this.
A tiny, desperate part of her mind told her she could stop the execution right here, lock him away forever, and technically live out her days with her mate alive.
But her mind flashed right back to the clinic.
She saw the girl’s trembling hands.
No.
This wasn’t enough.
He deserved nothing less than death.
“Kill him now!” The moment the words tore from her lips, the guard drove the dagger straight through the rogue’s chest, piercing his heart.
The rogue’s body went completely limp, his head dropping forward as his lifeless frame slumped against the chains.
The instant his heart stopped beating, a physical explosion of agony ripped through Raquelle’s entire chest.
It felt as if a hot iron had been driven into her soul, tearing the invisible mate bond out by its roots.
Her knees buckled.
The sheer, unadulterated grief of her midnight black wolf suffocated her.
*I killed my mate…* she whispered, her voice barely a breath.
Inside her mind, Roxy let out a horrific, deafening cry of pure agony, a mourning howl that shattered Raquelle’s remaining strength.
The world spun violently, turning completely dark as Raquelle’s body went limp, crashing heavily onto the dungeon floor as she fainted into absolute unconsciousness.
*** OMG!!!!
THAT ENDING WAS BRUTAL…WTF!
PLS COMMENT!
DID SHE DO THE RIGHT THING BY KILLING HER MATE?